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Interesting. I'm pretty much a novice to Classic Who, but I'm slowly working my way through it. I've seen five serials in that top ten, and I wouldn't rate any of them that high. I thought that "Genesis of the Daleks" and "Pyramid of Mars" were just terrible, plodding about as slow and clumsily as the chicken-wire mummy robots from the latter story. "City of Death" was fun because it was Douglas Adams writing the dialogue, and because Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is one of my favorite books. "Robots of Death" was decent. All in all, though, I don't see myself as a Tom Baker fan.
Meanwhile, I've been chronologically working my way through the Pertwee seasons, having never seen a Pertwee episode before, and I am loving them. I'd feared Classic Who was going to be nothing but disappointment to me, but I've found Pertwee's era to be almost nonstop brilliance. "Inferno," however, isn't nearly as good as two serials from the same year, "Spearhead from Space" and "Ambassadors of Death." The season after that, the year of nothing but Roger Delgado being completely awesome as the Master, is amazing. "The Daemons" is damn near perfect-- it's got the Brig, the rest of the UNIT Family, Super-Bessie, the devil, stuff exploding every three seconds, great bits of dialogue-- if it had just a little bit more Venusian karate and a little bit more interaction between Pertwee and Delgado, it would become completely sublime.
I've seen a lot of derision of Pertwee's era in various corners of the Who web. I understand where they're coming from: here, the anti-authority Doctor becomes a major authority figure, and an action hero, two things he really wasn't before; also, the Doctor spends a good deal of his time stuck on Earth. I think Pertwee pulls the whole thing off with godly aplomb and charm, and the reliance on an Earth-bound setting enables the Doc to build up a fantastic supporting cast-- the wonderful Liz Shaw, the adorable Jo Grant, the dryly witty and and maginificent Brigadier, the ever-hungry and fallible Sgt. Benton, the gung-ho Captain Yates, and, of course, the Master, who is perfectly portrayed in the anti-Doctor role by Roger Delgado. The man was born to play the Master, and his untimely death is a massive tragedy. The monsters are a little too rubbery, the sets a bit wobbily, and some bits are made out of tinfoil, but the entire enterprise is something held together by the sheer force of gusto, something I felt lacking in the Tom Baker era.
When I'm done with Pertwee, I might continue into T. Baker and give him another chance. Then again, I might just go back to Hartnell; before I discovered Pertwee, 'twas Hartnell who was my favorite "Classic" Doctor, and I've got quite a bit more of his run to check out.
Anyway, I'll stop raving. It's time to watch "The Sea Devils." |
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